Low-Power War: AM1 vs Bay Trail-D

[Dirk Broer]

For the cost conscious cruncher there seems to be a pot of gold at the horizon: both Intel and AMD claim a very cheap platform, and they claim that to be both on purchase and running costs.

While neither AM1, nor Bay Trail CPUs are on sale yet (and you can wait till hell freezes over for the latter, as they are soldered onto the motherboard), there are at least specs out for the motherboards and the Celeron version of Bay Trail can even be bought already. Should you do that?

Let's compare the features of the two platforms with each other:
AM1 vs Bay Trail-D

[/td]

AM1 Board	Feature	Bay Trail Board
	Motherboard Form Factor AM1: Mini-iTX or μATX. Bay Trail: Mostly Mini-iTX, but at least one μATX: look right!
	SOC Placement AM1: Upgradable Socket Bay Trail: Soldered on
	Cores AM1: Athlon: 4; Sempron: 2 - 4; Bay Trail: Pentium: 4; Celeron: 2 - 4
	TDP AM1: 25 Watt; Bay Trail: 10 Watt
	Max RAM AM1: 16-32 GB 1600 MHz (Mostly DIMM, sometimes SODIMM); Bay Trail: 4-8 GB 1333 MHz (Mostly SODIMM, sometimes DIMM)
	Storage Interface AM1: 2x SATA 6Gb/s; Bay Trail: 2x SATA 3Gb/s
	IGP Athlon: AMD Radeon HD 8400; Sempron: AMD Radeon HD 8280 or AMD Radeon HD 8240; Bay Trail: Intel HD Graphics
	PCIe2.0 x16 slot possible? AM1: Yes, working @4 speed; Bay Trail: Sometimes, working @1 speed

Based upon these specs I declare the AM1 platform to be the winner of the first round of the Low-Power War...

[Silver]

Great information there Dirk, thanks for the update
Be interesting to see what kind of numbers they can crunch though, I'm always open to an affordable cheap to run platform :)

[Alez]

I wonder how the purchase price and running costs stack up against android devices when compared to RAC.

I've seen boards for @£25, Amazon are taking orders for socket AM1 chips @£40. Depending on PSU and storage could well be cheaper in the long run than Ordroid u3's with import tax.
Could be time for some second hand low watt PSU's and small sata drives

[Dirk Broer]

With both Bay Trail and AM1 as the new kings of power efficiency I have tried to re-vamp my table.

There are three problems translating the specs into real-life performance:

1. TDP is what it is, it is *NOT* a definite measurement of real-life power consumption.
2. Crunching-wise, an IGP gets you far more credit than the cores of your CPU itself.
3. Knowing how much Watt TDP per core is designed for still says nothing about the possible credits per core.

Knowing that I still went on producing a top-12 list of this moment's coolest CPUs (or SOCs, or APUs, whatever)
Coolest CPUs: 2014

Brand	Version	Socket	Type	Threads	TDP	TDP/Threads
Celeron	J1900	onboard	Bay Trail D	4	10	2.50
Pentium	J2900	onboard	Bay Trail D	4	10	2.50
i7	4765T	1150	Haswell	8	35	4.38
Celeron	1800	onboard	Bay Trail D	2	10	5.00
i7	3770T	1155	Ivy Bridge	8	45	5.63
i7	4770T	1150	Haswell	8	45	5.63
Athlon	5350	AM1	Kabini	4	25	6.25
Athlon	5150	AM1	Kabini	4	25	6.25
Sempron	3850	AM1	Kabini	4	25	6.25

If anyone can point me to a table containing real-life power consumption per cpu and/or GFlops per cpu (for the above models, preferably including the IGP power), I'd be most grateful...

[Alez]

Would be very interesting to know if anyone has any of the new low power crunching devices by AMD or intel and what sort of credit / day / core they actually produce. Do they stack up against Android options ?
Dirk, I know what you mean, TDP is really just a meaningless marketing blurb, would be nice if they gave us real hard data.

[Dirk Broer]

The first round of the low-power war seems to have gone to AMD. The AMD SOCs had more features, CPU-wise, and their boards had more features too -as I described in the previous Low-Power posting. Idle power consumption was on a par with Bay Trail and only under stress did the Intel SOCs have a lower power consumption.
Most motherboard vendors did not even bother bringing out a board with Intel's flagship Bay Trail SOC, the so-called 'Pentium' J2900 (but really an Intel Atom under another name), no doubt because for less than the price of a J2900 board you can buy a AM1 board, an Athlon 5350 plus 4 GB of RAM. Over here I can only get J2900 boards from Asrock, and searching for J2900 boards by ASUS, MSI or Gigabyte drew a blank.

But Moore's Law wasn't formulated by an Intel founder just for fun. Them at Santa Clara might as well be honorary members of motorcycle gang 'No Surrender': they just won't give up. So now we are at round two, and Intel has a new contender series. Gone is the Silvermont-based Bay Trail-D and in is the Airmont-based Braswell (sounds like Haswell), with an even lower TDP -though the value of that metric can be questioned.

The waiting now is for AMD's new AM1 SOCs, based upon Mullins/Beema.

[Alez]

I am quite impressed with my baytrail tablet. The only problem is it runs android so very few projects support it. I have a couple of old based systems kicking around that get pressed into service every now and then for different tasks but are really too power inefficient to run as anything more than space heaters. This might be a way forward for these systems to be upgraded and re-tasked.

[Dirk Broer]

Try and stack this in one of your old P4 cases:

1600 MHz SO-DIMMS come in real handy too...
No SO-DIMMS in the leftovers? Use this board:

[Dirk Broer]

How does it look, the AM1 coolers?

Cooler	Picture	Verdict
AMD stock cooler		An unbeatable price/performance mix
Arctic Alpine M1		Not worth the extra money compared to the AMD stock cooler. It sure has the looks, but not the performance. It is quieter though
Arctic Alpine M1 Passive		The cooler to go for in case of a HTPC with a roomy iTX case (or mATX case). Dead silent, but do not tax your system too much, as it is the worst cooling AM1 cooler
Gelid Slim Silent		Not worth the extra money compared to the AMD stock cooler, both temperature and noise-wise. Looks more competent though
Scythe Kodati Rev.B		Not worth the extra money compared to the AMD stock cooler, but one of the few that cools better. Might be quieter in everyday use too but, when pushed to the edge, the noisiest of AM1 coolers except for the AMD stock cooler -which is surprisingly quiet under 24/7 BOINC btw

Specifications

Model	Height mm	Width mm	Noise dBA	Fan Speed rpm
AMD AM1 Stock cooler	39.4	60	38.7	till 4060
Arctic Alpine M1	41	80	till 20.5	till 750
Arctic Alpine M1 Passive	70	77	0	0
Gelid Slim Silence AM1	26	79	15-27.2	1200-2600
Scythe Kodati Rev.B	34	82.5	8.2-32.5	800-3300

Take these values with a pinch of salt, as these are the manufacturers claims, except for the AMD stock cooler.
In real-life -sorry, in German- the Arctic coolers, though utter to whisper quiet, failed to actually cool as good as the AMD stock cooler, as the guys from http://www.tech-review.de found:

Noisewise:

[Dirk Broer]

A new overview of the coolest running CPUs/APUs/SOCs your money can buy. All values are based upon the TDP value as given by the manufacturer, so please take them with a spoon of salt (a big spoon).

There are three problems translating the specs into real-life performance:

1. TDP is what it is, it is *NOT* a definite measurement of real-life power consumption.
2. Crunching-wise, an IGP -a capable IGP that is- gets you far more credit than the cores of your CPU itself.
3. Knowing how much Watt TDP per core is used still says nothing about the credits per core earned.

Knowing all that, I still went on producing a top-11 list of this moment's coolest [desktop and server] CPUs (or SOCs, or APUs, whatever).
Coolest CPU: 2016

Ranking	Brand	Version	Socket	Model	MHz	Threads	TDP	Score
1	Intel	Atom C2730	onboard	Avoton	1700	8	12	1.50
2	Intel	Pentium N3700	onboard	Braswell-M	1600	4	6	1.50
3	Intel	Celeron J3160	onboard	Braswell-D	1600	4	6	1.50
4	Intel	Celeron N3150	onboard	Braswell-M	1600	4	6	1.50
5	Intel	Pentium J3710	onboard	Braswell-D	1600	4	7	1.75
6	Intel	Atom C2718	onboard	Rangeley	2000	8	18	2.25
7	Intel	Atom C2750	onboard	Avoton	2400	8	20	2.50
8	Intel	Atom C2738	onboard	Rangeley	2400	8	20	2.50
9	Intel	Atom C2758	onboard	Rangeley	2000	8	18	2.25
10	Intel	Pentium J2900	onboard	Bay Trail-D	2410	4	10	2.50
11	Intel	Celeron J1900	onboard	Bay Trail-D	2000	4	10	2.50

This may sound like a lot of different chips, but underneath they're all Intel Atoms!
A word of advice: when using these low-powered chips it makes absolutely no sense to connect them to a 750 Watt or more PSU, even when it is platinum or titanium certified. The power draw of these systems is so low that even these heavily certified PSUs can't really get to their efficient values.
You might consider a laptop brick, or a 60-90 Watt Pico PSU..
Some of these boards using the SOCs as described above come in DC versions (e.g. the Asrock Q1900DC-ITX) that can be used straightaway with a laptop brick.

[Dirk Broer]

The previous list -which is not even ready yet- was a bit of a whitewash for Intel Atom based systems with an onboard (as in soldered-on) SOC.
How come we're not all rushing to the stores to buy us some 8-core (or more) Avotons, Rangeleys or Denvertons?

There are various reasons, some of which might not even occur directly to you or your wallet:

1. Availability. Your round-the-corner PC shop does not stock them, perhaps not even your round-the-internet webshop.
2. Price. They're f#$*ing expensive, 300-400 US$ a board.
3. A (mostly) mediocre IGP -if any at all.
4. A limited instruction set, compared to the Intel Core family, or competing AMD products.

1. Can be circumvented by searching for a really good webshop.
2. Can be circumvented by selling all your old junk, or mining bitcoins for a prolonged period, or a combination of both.
3. Can be circumvented by buying only the best Intel HD equipped SOC of the list.
4. Can not be circumvented. Just hope for unoptimized BOINC applications.

[Alez]

I found all your above problems with the bay trail boards. I have looked at the AM1 though and those are far more readily available and most support a GPU slot as well, would marry well with a GTX750 TI for some serious low power systems. My question is do you have or know anyone that runs any as the boards ? Alll state windows 7 with additional drivers or windows 10 as operating systems. Do they run on Linux ? Not paying MS for any windoze licenses.

[Dirk Broer]

I am currently running two AM1 boxes, both in an Antec ISK 110 case that does not provide room for an extra GPU.
The two systems run on Windows 10 (ASUS AM1I-A) and Ubuntu 15.10 (MSI AM1I), both without any problem. I have installed Windows 10 on the ASUS board after I had borked the original Ubuntu 14.04, trying to get it to run with both CAL/Brook++ as well as OpenCL.

I have planned to buy an extra AM1 board, the Asrock AM1H-ITX, and put it in a Bitfenix Prodigy that provides ample room for an extra GPU. As Linux -like Windows 8.1- is not very good in mixing different OpenCL video drivers, I'll install a Radeon card, but nothing that requires more than PCIe 3.0 x4, Asrock claiming that the PCIe slot isn't even meant for GPUs....
But perhaps they have issued that warning in case some user that has powered the board through the onboard DC adapter fails to be able to run a discrete GPU, who knows?

I am also tempted to buy an Asrock N3700M to compare it with the AM1 boards. It will then replace an earlier Socket 775 C2Q-8200 -just as the AM1H-ITX will replace an earlier Socket FM1 A8-3850, all in order to get my power bills down.

[Dirk Broer]

Bought me my 3rd AM1 board, as the first two brought me so much happiness. Low power use, very low noise and steady performance.
Prices for the AM1 SOCs have dropped recently, so I could buy a quad-core Athlon 5350 SOC for a mere 42 Euro's.
As I now have AM1 mobo's from three of the four tier one mobo companies -only lacking a Gigabyte- I'll do a comparison for you,
trying out a few of the new features Janos gave to this forum. As extra I throw in a Kabini mini-ITX board with a A4-5000 SOC.
... The great Kabini motherboards shoot-out: Part 1 being a shoot-out of the greatest mini iTX Kabini boards
Kabini mini-iTX boards compared

Brands
Model	AM1H-ITX	AM1I-A	AM1I	QC5000-ITX/WiFi
Max RAM	32 GB DDR3 (2x 16 GB) 1600 MHz Single channel	32 GB DDR3 (2x 16 GB) 1600 MHz Single channel	32 GB DDR3 (2x 16 GB) 1600 MHz Single channel	32 GB DDR3 (2x 16 GB) 1600 MHz Single channel
D-Sub VGA, for KVM switch	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DVI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HDMI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Display Port	Yes	No	No	Yes
Mini PCI-Express (for WiFi)	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
PS/2 ports(for KVM switch)	1	2	2	1
USB 2.0 ports	6	8	6	6
USB 3.0 ports	4	2	2	6
SATA 600 ports	4	2	2	4
Audio codec	Realtek ALC892	Realtek ALC887	Realtek ALC887	Realtek ALC892
Fan ports	3	2	2	3
Mosfet cooling	No	Passive	No	No
Overclockable	No	Yes	No	No
Sandra SiSoft 2013 CPU Dhrystone	30.70 Gips	29.31 Gips	30.87 Gips	n/a
Sandra SiSoft 2013 CPU Whetstone	14.35 GFlops	14.45 GFlops	14.51 GFlops	n/a
Sandra SiSoft 2013 Memory Bandwidth	5.61 GB/s	7 GB/s	6 GB/s	3.20 GB/s
Power draw Idle (5 min.)	24.0 Watt	25.2 Watt	21.6 Watt	n/a
Power draw Cinebench (max)	40.1 Watt	44.5 Watt	36.6 Watt	n/a

Part of the greatness being the availability in the shops I frequent, but these boards each have their own claim to AM1/Kabini fame.
The often read remark that the ASUS board is too expensive doesn't hold world-wide: I bought mine for 39 Euro's, just as expensive as the MSI board.
The Asrock was far more expensive: 62 Euro's for all those extra features.
Note that you can significantly lower the power draw by using a Pico PSU or likewise power supply such as included in e.g.
the Antec ISK 110.

[Dirk Broer]

Asrock, a brand I swore only a few years back never to buy willingly again, is currently in fact one of the most interesting motherboard manufacturers.
They seem to manage to add features to boards that other manufacturers just don't think off (e.g. Socket 478 boards with DDR2 RAM, extra SATA-600 and USB 3.0 controller on an AM1 board, etc.), or deem uneconomical. In the low-power segment only Biostar (ehr.., Bio what?) seems to come close when it comes to the number of different boards per platform.
When we limit us to iTX boards for the Bay Trail and Brasswell platforms and only want look at quad cores, Asrock still easily manages to give us six boards that are among the top of their field (and then I've even left out their Thin Mini iTX boards, where they are the sole supplier of such for Bay Trail and Brasswell).
Asrock iTX Intel onboard (2016)

Boards
SOC	Celeron J1900 2.00 GHz (2.42 GHz Turbo)	Pentium J2900 2.41 GHz (2.67 GHz Turbo)	Celeron N3150 1.60 GHz (2.08 GHz Turbo)	Pentium N3700 1.60 GHz (2.40 GHz Turbo)	Celeron J3160 1.60 GHz (2.24 GHz Turbo)	Pentium J3710 1.60 GHz (2.64 GHz Turbo)
Model	Q1900-ITX	Q2900-ITX	N3150-ITX	N3700-ITX	J3160-ITX	J3710-ITX
IGP	Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail, 4 EU)	Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail, 4 EU)	Intel HD Graphics (Braswell, 12 EU)	Intel HD Graphics (Braswell, 16 EU)	Intel HD Graphics 400 (Braswell, 12 EU)	Intel HD Graphics 405 (Braswell, 18 EU)
Max RAM	16 GB DDR3 1333 MHz (2x 8 GB SoDIMM) Dual channel	16 GB DDR3 1333 MHz (2x 8 GB SoDIMM) Dual channel	16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz (2x 8 GB SoDIMM) Dual channel	16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz (2x 8 GB SoDIMM) Dual channel	16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz (2x 8 GB SoDIMM) Dual channel	16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz (2x 8 GB SoDIMM) Dual channel
D-Sub (VGA)	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
DVI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HDMI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Display Port	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mini PCI-Express (for WiFi)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PS/2 ports (for KVM switch)	2	2	1	1	1	1
USB 2.0 ports	4	4	6	6	6	6
USB 3.0 ports	4	4	6	6	6	6
SATA-300 ports	2	2	0	0	0	0
SATA-600 ports	2	2	4	4	4	4
Audio Codec	Realtek ALC892	Realtek ALC892	Realtek ALC892	Realtek ALC892	Realtek ALC892	Realtek ALC892
Fan ports	2	2	2	2	2	2
Mosfet Cooling	No	No	No	No	No	No
Overclockable	No	No	No	No	No	No
Sandra SiSoft 2013 CPU Dhrystone	28.0 Gips	30.9 Gips	25.0 Gips	28.7 Gips	30.2 Gips	n/a
Sandra SiSoft 2013 CPU Whetstone	13.32 GFlops	15.33 GFlops	11.63 GFlops	13.80 GFlops	19.86 GFlops	n/a
Sandra SiSoft 2013 Memory Bandwidth	11.20 GB/s	7.15 GB/s	10.58 GB/s	10.55 GB/s	11.00 GB/s	n/a
Power Draw: idle (5 min.)	24.0 Watt	24.0 Watt	22.8 Watt	22.8 Watt	27.1 Watt	n/a
Power Draw: Cinebench (max.)	29.4 Watt	30.1 Watt	27.3 Watt	28.1 Watt	32.4 Watt	n/a

[Janos (retired)]

Awesome posts Dirk. Thanks :)

[Dirk Broer]

The low-power war continues:

AMD has released the scarce-as-hen's-teeth Athlon 5370, clocked 10% higher than the previous top model,
Intel has released the even more rare Pentium J3710, with Asrock as usual being the first and only to -virtually yet- supply them.
The J3710 replaces the N3700 as top Braswell/Cherry Trail SOC.

[scole of TSBT]

Plenty of Athlon 5370s here...https://amzn.com/B01BIWN2TY

Can't get the Pentium J33710 thru Prime, but its available...https://amzn.com/B01GQRLPNG

[scole of TSBT]

If you know anyone with an APO (US armed forces or diplomatic) address, I can buy and ship those things. I can ship a 23-11/16" x 11-3/4" x 3" or 12" x 12" x 5-1/2" Priority Mail Large Flat Rate box for $16.75 to APO/FPO/DPO address.

[Dirk Broer]

If need may be, you can send stuff to the US Embassy in the Netherlands - I do deliver mail there sometimes, I must be able to pick up stuff too.

But I can wait for the J3710 -and the even better future J4605 too- to hit the streets. The μATX Asrock J3710M is €108 over here, the Asrock J3710-ITX is €117.

[killeriq]

Hello,

Thanks for the great post about the AMD/Intel low power CPUs

Im currently looking for my NAS (zyxel nsa 325 v2) and Android TV (Minix x8) replacement...

Need 3-4x HDD space + hdmi out for media center, 24/7 online

First i was thinking about HP Microserver N40/N56 or the newest G8 G2020T cpu - but there is no HDMI (so would need Graphic card which is extra costs)

Then ive find out about AM1 platform with 5350 or 5370 with Asrock AM1H-ITX which seems nice combo + Bitfenix Prodigy or Cooler Master Elite 130 (but only 3xHDD)

Now there is also Intel platform out J3710

Co im confused which one would be better to fit my needs?

Thanks for any suggestion

[Dirk Broer]

Then ive find out about AM1 platform with 5350 or 5370 with Asrock AM1H-ITX which seems nice combo + Bitfenix Prodigy or Cooler Master Elite 130 (but only 3xHDD). Now there is also Intel platform out J3710. Co im confused which one would be better to fit my needs? Thanks for any suggestion

Being an AMD User myself, I'd like to point out the AVX, BMI and F16c instructions/extentions that the AM1 platform SOCs supports as opposed to the Braswell, and the better IGP of the AMD SOC (but do not use Ubuntu 16.04 as OS, or you'll loose the GPU due to the Open-Source driver that does not support OpenCL higher than 1.1, user-experience speaking here).
Energy consumption-wise, the extreme low TDP of the Braswell is an advantage (but when choosing AMD together with a 60 Watt pico-PSU -or laptop brick- that difference might be much smaller).

The Asrock boards for the two SOCs differ hardly in features: The AM1H-ITX supports VGA, handy for my KVM switch and would also allow for an extra Video card, while the J3710 board from Asrock lacks that feature.

My own -biased- conclusion: AM1 has the advantage.

[killeriq]

Thanks for reply, im also AMD user (also due to cost and not so many chipsets X times a year :) )
Well thanks for advice i will go for the AMD, hope there is no new AMD cpu plan in close future (just if i should wait a bit)

[Dirk Broer]

hope there is no new AMD cpu plan in close future (just if i should wait a bit)

Oh yes there is! Zen is 'around the corner', but the ones to look out for (in the same class as AM1/Braswell) are either Socket FM4 'Stoney Ridge' boards/SOCs or Socket FP4 boards with onboard 'Stoney Ridge' SOCs. I have seen no benchmarks for these yet, so if you can get your hands on a Athlon 5370 and a Asrock AM1H-ITX, I'd do that. 'Stoney Ridge' is rumoured to be made of 'Excavator' modules, I prefer the four real Jaguar cores of the AM1 platform.
AM1 is already hard to get around here, some shops don't even stock the boards anymore...

[killeriq]

one more quetion, with pic PSU u ment this:
http://resources.mini-box.com/online/PW ... 0-big2.jpg
or


Regarding the Wattage i need to buy the same laptop adapter, right? or it doesnt matter?

Somewhere ive seen that Asrock AM1H-ITX - its also made with DC connector.

Aliexpress link - there are plenty of 150-160w picopsu, can i get that one? or which one to get?
http://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-p ... t=pico+psu


will be 4 x 3.5 HDD + MB/CPU
----
ADD:
Did some more reading regarding CPU/Socket - as i want it only as NAS and media player - was thinking more about N3150, but ive found also newer version J3160 - ASRock mainboards cost around the same. I like AMD, but the less power take is for me more beneficial then some advantage in GPU power, most of the time it will only sits in living room as idle NAS device.

[Dirk Broer]

It is almost like these postings are being read at Asrock HQ themselves....almost, because I've just made them readable again by applying the TSBT home style table format.
Why read by Asrock, as you might ask: the last two series of Intel low-power boards have two PS/2 ports again! (handy for us multi-port KVM-Switch owners!)
Back too, to the delight of those KVM-users, are the VGA ports (but at the cost of Display ports).
Two Series? Yes, Bay Trail and Braswell have been followed up by Apollo Lake and most recently Gemini Lake.
Apollo Lake can use 1866 MHz DDR3, Gemini Lake even 2400 MHz DDR4. Nifty tables will follow soon....

[Dirk Broer]

Aagain a new overview of the coolest running CPUs/APUs/SOCs your money can buy. All values are based upon the TDP value as given by the manufacturer (aka Intel, from evil inside), so please take them with a spoon of salt (a big spoon).

There are, as ever, three problems translating these specs into real-life performance:

1. TDP is what it is, it is *NOT* a definite measurement of real-life power consumption. Looke e.g. here.
2. Crunching-wise, an IGP -a capable IGP that is- gets you far more BOINC credits than the cores of your CPU itself.
3. Knowing how much Watt TDP per core is used still says nothing about the credits per core earned, I'd rather have IPC (instructions per clock cycle) figures.

Knowing all that, I still went on producing a top-10 list of this moment's coolest desktop CPUs (or SOCs, or APUs, whatever).
I kicked out the Atoms for budget's sake this time however.
Coolest CPU: 2018

Ranking	Brand	Version	Socket	Model	Speed in MHz	Turbo Speed	Threads	TDP in Watts	TDP/Threads	Turbo/TDP
1	Intel	Pentium N3700	onboard	Braswell-M	1600	2400	4	6	1.50	462
2	Intel	Celeron J3160	onboard	Braswell-D	1600	2240	4	6	1.50	373
3	Intel	Celeron N3150	onboard	Braswell-M	1600	2080	4	6	1.50	347
4	Intel	Pentium J3710	onboard	Braswell-D	1600	2640	4	7	1.75	377
5	Intel	Pentium J5005	onboard	Gemini Lake	1500	2800	4	10	2.50	280
6	Intel	Pentium J2900	onboard	Bay Trail-D	2410	2670	4	10	2.50	267
7	Intel	Pentium J4205	onboard	Apollo Lake	1500	2600	4	10	2.50	260
8	Intel	Celeron J4105	onboard	Gemini Lake	1500	2500	4	10	2.50	250
9	Intel	Celeron J1900	onboard	Bay Trail-D	2000	2410	4	10	2.50	241
10	Intel	Celeron J3455	onboard	Apollo Lake	1500	2300	4	10	2.50	230

Again the word of advice: when using these low-powered chips it makes absolutely NO sense to connect them to a 750 Watt -or more- PSU, even when it is 'platinum' or 'titanium' certified. The power draw of these systems is so low that even these heavily certified PSUs can't really get to their efficient values.
You might want to consider a laptop brick, and a 60 to 90 Watt Pico PSU. It is far quieter too!

If you want the system to double as NAS you can use a heavier Pico PSU of course, or a passively cooled ATX power supply of 400 Watt when you want to go for RAID 5 or RAID 6, or more (RAID 50 or 60 even?).
Some of these boards using the SOCs as described above come in DC (as in direct current) versions (e.g. the Asrock Q1900DC-ITX) that can be used straightaway with a laptop brick.

[Alez]

It is almost like these postings are being read at Asrock HQ themselves....almost, because I've just made them readable again by applying the TSBT home style table format.

It is a pretty awesome looking thread. Keep that info flowing.

[Dirk Broer]

Though AMD presently has nothing better to offer in this segment -motherboards with onboard CPUs/APUs/SOCs- than the A4-5000 SOC,
and only Asrock is left as supplier of mobo's equipped with those, there is nothing to hold back AMD from making an entry with a competing product.

The quad-core, eight-thread AMD Ryzen 7 2700U has a TDP of 15 Watt, runs standard at 2200 MHz and has a turbo speed of 3800 MHz.
This would ensure very good values in the previous table, on par with or even better than Gemini Lake. And AMD really shines is the supported instructions sets.
Features:

• MMX instructions
• Extensions to MMX
• SSE / Streaming SIMD Extensions
• SSE2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
• SSE3 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
• SSSE3 / Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
• SSE4 / SSE4.1 + SSE4.2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 4
• SSE4a
• AES / Advanced Encryption Standard instructions
• AVX / Advanced Vector Extensions
• AVX2 / Advanced Vector Extensions 2.0
• BMI / BMI1 + BMI2 / Bit Manipulation instructions
• F16C / 16-bit Floating-Point conversion instructions
• FMA3 / 3-operand Fused Multiply-Add instructions
• AMD64 / AMD 64-bit technology
• EVP / Enhanced Virus Protection
• AMD-V / AMD Virtualization technology
• Precision Boost 2
• Mobile Extended Frequency Range

CPU-Z scores

Athlon 5350	Athlon A4-5000	Ryzen 7 2700U

If Bay Trail, Braswell, Apollo Lake and Gemini Lake have one thing in common is is the limited number of instruction sets:
Features

• MMX instructions
• SSE / Streaming SIMD Extensions
• SSE2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
• SSE3 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
• SSSE3 / Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
• SSE4 / SSE4.1 + SSE4.2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 4
• EM64T / Extended Memory 64 technology / Intel 64
• NX / XD / Execute disable bit
• VT-x / Virtualization technology
• BPT / Burst Performance technology

Braswell later adding AES and Apollo Lake and Gemini Lake adding SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm extensions) and VT-d to that
CPU-Z scores

Pentium J2900	Pentium J3710	Pentium J4205

Braswell was better than Bay Trail by virtue of e.g. SATA-600 support, Apollo Lake was better than Braswell by virtue of e.g. the increased bus speed (100 MHz instead of 85 MHz),
where Gemini Lake really shines is the double amount of L2 cache as compared to its earlier brothers, the added max. memory bandwidth by virtue of the 2400 MHz DDR4 RAM
and last but not least: the added codec support, That codec support had already increased over the previous generations so there is a staggering difference between Bay Trail and Gemini Lake.

[Dirk Broer]

I'd never thought I would do this: I'm going to make a new system for my missus, using an Asrock J5005-ITX.
As there are no equivalent embedded Ryzen boards out yet, and the missus is getting sick and tired of her old Pentium Dual Core trying to start Windows10 32-bit with a mere 3GB usable DDR2 RAM, I will build her an Asrock J5005-ITX system with -for now- 8 GB of DDR4 RAM (there is a German hardware site where a Celeron J4105 edition of Gemini Lake has been tested with 32 GB of RAM), a Samsung 860 EVO SSD instead of her old HDD and 64-bit Win10 of course.
On top of that I will pinch her GT 630 GPU (as the J5005 has powerful enough internal graphics) and will replace her PSU with a Seasonic 400 Watt Fanless (80+ Platinum certified!).
This will leave her with a soundless PC which uses almost no power, a win/win situation as it seems to be called nowadays by managers and the likes of them.

P.S.: I might want to use the GT 630 in a FreeBSD system, as my experiment with AMD graphics and FreeBSD turned out to be a disaster.

[Alez]

I'd never thought I would do this:

..... so it begins, your journey to the dark side of the force

[Dirk Broer]

I'd never thought I would do this:

..... so it begins, your journey to the dark side of the force

I can always throw the board in the nearest volcano, provided i can find enough hobbits to travel with...I'll be my own Gandalf (grey hair is turning white)

Now for a snappy Star Trek reply, then we've offended three groups of fans

[Alez]

Now for a snappy Star Trek reply, then we've offended three groups of fans

Obviously you've given in to the fact that

The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the one

or simply go full Microsoft / Borg

"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

[Dirk Broer]

Now for a snappy Star Trek reply, then we've offended three groups of fans

Obviously you've given in to the fact that

The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the one

or simply go full Microsoft / Borg

"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

Never had only Intel and never will I have have either. There has always been at least one AMD running in my farm -and nowadays there's ARM (and Power PC from my collection!)
If I win the lottery I may buy an Intel Xeon -once I have exhausted my AMD must-haves.

AMD must-haves:
Raven Ridge Ryzen 3 2200G - 1st upgrade to my present Asrock A320M Pro4 Bristol Ridge AM4 system. Bristol Ridge will go to a Asrock A320-iTX bord, replacing another FM1 system
Raven Ridge Ryzen 3 2400G - 2nd upgrade, to be placed in a Asrock AB350M Pro4 -yet another FM1 system in strategic reserve
Pinnacle Ridge Ryzen 5 2600 - 3rd upgrade, to be placed in a Asrock B450M Pro4
etc, all the way up to a 32-core Threadripper 2

[Dirk Broer]

My first RMA mobo: the Asrock J5005-iTX is on its long way back to the manufacturer. The shop has ordered a new one and once it is in they send my old board (plus SATA cables, driver DVD, I/O shield, quick intallation guide and M.2 screw) to Asrock via the importer.

I could not get any video, it did not post. If I pushed the power button, the system fan began to turn -that's all. After a minute or so the fan came to a halt even.
Both VGA and HDMI claimed 'no signal'. Without RAM a continuous series of three long beeps and a short break in between, with RAM (either one or two) a sublime version of Simon & Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence". Boy am I disturbed....and I am not even the only one
[youtube][/youtube]

[Dirk Broer]

Second mobo, same problems. Turns out that the Kingston HX424S14IBK2/8 HyperX CAS14 DDR4 SODIMM modules are incompatible with the Intel J5005 (both for mobo's and Intel NUCs)....
The computer store is very helpful: when I ordered G.Skill RAM that is compatible in exchange with the KIngston sticks, they offered to test it on the 1st mobo -which they still have in store.
If all works out well with the new RAM I may buy the 1st board again, to test Win 10 against Linux on this platform.
The G.Skill RAM works, Windows 8 is busy with update 87 of 131 (first series of updates). I hope it rolls all the way to Windows 10...but no: One of the updates is rotten. To be continued.

Win10 up and running. System performs markedly superior to the DDR2-fed Pentium dual-core that it replaces. Might be tempted to install BOINC on the system Rumour has it that it is as powerful as a quad-core Intel Q6600. I have visited the store and asked for the 1st board again, as they had tested it with the G.Skill RAM and it worked. 'Out' (read: in strategic reserve) goes a quad-core 100 Watt TDP AMD FM1 system (A8-3850).
Let's compare the J5005 against the A8-3850 and the Q6600:

[Dirk Broer]

I received the DDR4 SoDIMMs (2 sticks for a total of 16 GB) for the other board today and managed to run BOINC just a little later (I played dirty: I connected a Linux Mint 19 disk)
Unbelievable MIPS values, which I will share with you as soon as the Win10 board will have a running BOINC client/manager configuration.
For the time being I will state that a fresh Win10 install and BOINC don't mix. Merely allowing every BOINC *.exe through the firewall is not enough....
I am faced with a manager that has no projects to choose from, no settings to change and an unavailable BOINC log under a fresh Win10.

For the Linux client the big let-down is that, just as with AMD GPUs, the Intel GPU is not recognized in Mint 19 (or any other recent Linux distro that uses the Open Source video drivers)...

[Dirk Broer]

The latest kernel-update for Linux Mint 19 made the Intel IGP in my J5005 recognized by BOINC!
The Win10 J5005 still won't download WUs from any project....

[Hal Bregg]

It's been a while, Dirk, since your last update. Any luck?

[Dirk Broer]

I can state that Linux support for Intel IGPs is dawning -at the level of Linux AMD support, so infuriating low. OpenCL 2.0 support for the beignet driver though.
WU's start, but get postponed. No error messages, but they keep getting postponed.

The Win10 J5005 still will not download from any project -in fact I had the biggest of problems getting the projects to show up in the BOINC manager at all.

[Dirk Broer]

We can safely say that the days of both AM1 and Bay Trail-D are left behind us. Nowadays it is Goldmont Plus/Gemini Lake as far Intel is concerned and they have a new iron in the fire: the Pentium J5040. AMD meanwhile..... keeps awfully quiet.
What can the J5040 do? Everyting that the J5005 could, but faster. The J5040 has a base frequency of 2000MHz (J5005 1500MHz), and a turbo speed of 3200MHz on one core, and 2800MHz on all (J5005 2800MHz on one core, and 2700MHz on all). Quiet surprisingly, the number of Execution Units (EUs) of the Intel UHD Graphics 605 IGP has been lowered to 12 (J5005 had 18).

What could AMD offer to e.g. Asrock, the total and utter kings of iTX onboard boards? They can counter the Onboard Celeron offerings with their AMD Ryzen Embedded R1505G and/or R1606G (both having a 15 Watt TDP and Vega 3 graphics -the same as the desktop Athlons. Both are dual-cores with hyper-threading, so offering a total of 4 threads (something only the deluxe Celerons can), but they also have 3rd level cache and support much more instructions than the Goldmont Plus generation. Codec-wise h264 Decode/Encode; JPEG Decode/Encode; h265 8bit Decode/Encode; h265 10bit Decode/Encode; VP8 Decode/Encode; VP9 Decode/Encode; VC-1 Decode; AVC Decode, so a huge improvement to the AM1 platform -which had none of these goodies, making it a bad choice for a multi-media center.
The new Intel Pentium J5040 could face another Ryzen however: the Ryzen V1605B. This has a same base frequency as the J5040, but a turbo of 3600MHz. The TDP is 15 Watt and the graphics are Vega 8 -the same as the Ryzen 5 2200G and 3200G. It has four cores with hyper-threading and Codec-wise it is the same as the R-series, and it also has that 3rd level cache.

[jockmacmad2]

We can safely say that the days of both AM1 and Bay Trail-D are left behind us. Nowadays it is Goldmont Plus/Gemini Lake as far Intel is concerned and they have a new iron in the fire: the Pentium J5040. AMD meanwhile..... keeps awfully quiet.
What can the J5040 do? Everyting that the J5005 could, but faster. The J5040 has a base frequency of 2000MHz (J5005 1500MHz), and a turbo speed of 3200MHz on one core, and 2800MHz on all (J5005 2800MHz on one core, and 2700MHz on all). Quiet surprisingly, the number of Execution Units (EUs) of the Intel UHD Graphics 605 IGP has been lowered to 12 (J5005 had 18).

What could AMD offer to e.g. Asrock, the total and utter kings of iTX onboard boards? They can counter the Onboard Celeron offerings with their AMD Ryzen Embedded R1505G and/or R1606G (both having a 15 Watt TDP and Vega 3 graphics -the same as the desktop Athlons. Both are dual-cores with hyper-threading, so offering a total of 4 threads (something only the deluxe Celerons can), but they also have 3rd level cache and support much more instructions than the Goldmont Plus generation. Codec-wise h264 Decode/Encode; JPEG Decode/Encode; h265 8bit Decode/Encode; h265 10bit Decode/Encode; VP8 Decode/Encode; VP9 Decode/Encode; VC-1 Decode; AVC Decode, so a huge improvement to the AM1 platform -which had none of these goodies, making it a bad choice for a multi-media center.
The new Intel Pentium J5040 could face another Ryzen however: the Ryzen V1605B. This has a same base frequency as the J5040, but a turbo of 3600MHz. The TDP is 15 Watt and the graphics are Vega 8 -the same as the Ryzen 5 2200G and 3200G. It has four cores with hyper-threading and Codec-wise it is the same as the R-series, and it also that 3rd level cache.

Also there are the new AMD Renoir 15W Parts incoming such as the RENOIR Ryzen 9 B12 15W FP6 and RENOIR NB RYZEN 9 PRO B12B 15W FP6 (still with their pre-release catchy names). Notebook chips so not from the embedded range but still a TDP of 15W.

[Dirk Broer]

Intel-wise there's a new king in low-powerland, with a 'fancy' name, too.
No numbers (e.g 80486DX4-133) or names (e.g. 'Pentium', 'Celeron', or 'Core'), the Intel Marketing department has completely outdone itself and has come up with the name 'Processor'.

Commercially the first offered to us is de Processor N100, let's cut the crap and compare them honestly:
CPU-Z (click to make bigger)

Never mind CPU-Z here on the N100, it's still new.

HWINFO64 (click to make bigger)


So: it runs even cheaper (6 Watt as compared to 10 Watt TDP), supports more (important) instructions, has a higher turbo speed and has a L3 cache.
I say Intel has a winner here. Codec-wise it offers also more than the J5005 and/or J5040, so replace those in your HTPC, moviebox or whatever.

ASRock offers the N100 in both iTX and MicroATX, ASUS also has a N100 board in the pipeline.
Keep your eyes out for N200 and/or (eight-core) N300 boards too though...Funny: the N305 seems to be worthy to carry the name 'Core i3'
Gigabyte GB-BNi3-N305 Brix Barebone